The Late Show
Tonight is one of those nights I'm having trouble sleeping; my wife got me that sleep cd, which really helps me relax. But it's sitting in my car and I probably haven't used it in two weeks and I just feel antsy. When my turning wakes my wife up, it seems better for both of us if I get up for an hour or two and then go back to sleep.
Things are crappy at work. The meeting Tuesday went poorly, the e-mail vote sent out later, even the meeting minutes: my vision for online got blended with my desire not to drive four or five days a week (and these things are not completely separate). Anyway, I don't know yet, but I could end up without online classes as soon as next fall. And no matter what happens next year or even the year after, this department does not feel the need to keep my teaching in the internet aether. Plenty of other colleges, even one in our district, staff many more sections than my dept. is willing to do. And I'm hurt, and angry, and sad.
I know I am making a choice: I could drive down four days a week the semesters I don't have online. But frankly, I miss being more active on the campus. I miss attending events, campus forums, the kind of thing one can do when one is there four or five days a week, and when one lives closer. I have a meeting on Friday with a faculty member from another campus in our district, half the distance from my house, and I hope this goes well. Right now, I'm leaning toward lateral transfer to this college, but that is like applying for another job. I have to have the support of the department I'm transferring to, and both presidents. I would appreciate prayer over this. Before the meeting Tuesday, the one that went so poorly, I prayed and actually asked God that his will be done; somehow I felt like that was the thing to pray for. Well, the meeting didn't go the way I wanted. Does that mean it was God's will? I don't know. But now I am feeling very scared.
I know it will all work out, even if I have to move back to the valley (blech). But I'm hopeful things might look brighter up the hill. We'll see.
Bottom line is I'm anxious and was hurt by a couple members of the department I didn't think would hurt me. Oh I am angry with them. And yes, all this has increased my general anxiety; it was laying so low for several weeks. I guess that is to be expected.
***
In spiritual news: I began writing my response to Schweitzer, ended up on the miracle question, re-read Hume...there's simply too much. I believe it will take me years to wade through the alternative 'gospels' should I continue to do so. I do want to know the truth; I need to know it. But I can't handle German higher criticism, Crossan, and myth studies all at the same time. I believe God will provide me the answers I need if I humbly and heartfully seek, but not all at once. More uncertainty. I don't like it. Still, the article is coming; more than one. I have things I need to work out on paper. Christian faith in the age of critical thinking and skepticism...it is a challenge; some things in the faith need to be worked out, and have been in many circles. The Adam/Eve creation myth for example. That account is clearly a literary myth. Did Jesus believe it? Impossible to say, but you see, I'm beginning and I'm not ready to begin.
Some people count sheep...
I did get a couple books on the episcopal diaconate from our deacon. They are interesting. I really don't know if that's where my gifts lie, but I'm curious. I can't imagine myself a priest or pastor in any denomination. It would be fun to be a Christian academic, but I'm getting a little old for all those new degrees, and that doesn't seem like what I want either.
I think of C.S. Lewis (no, I'm not saying my goal is to be him) and his simple, though often beautiful, solutions to theological problems. A genuine lay writer. And for most people, he's enough. He was plenty for me once. But when I read the writers he was refuting, writers he often doesn't even mention, it feels like his exquisite mind didn't have all the pieces to the puzzle it should have. Lewis was an English professor, deeply read (in a way almost no humans are today, even academics) in the mythic-literary history of the ancient world and the west. But he wasn't a theologian as he himself notes. And sometimes his solutions, while often excellent (I still find his essay on scripture in Reflections on the Psalms brilliant) seem bumper sticker simple to me. This doesn't mean he wasn't right, but he did not get as close to a problem as I like to, as modern critics do. Science has shown us how close we must look at the test tube when it boils. (Of course modern theology is often drastically creative; almost none of its hypothesis can actually be tested).
But when I let go of verbal plenary inspiration, when I see the Bible as a collection of books, written (and chosen) by humans, though influenced/appropriated by God for a single purpose: the presentation of the Christ; when chapter and verse no longer settle all debate for me...ah, you see, the gray door opens and it stays open. I have to admit there is so much I don't know, that no one on this earth knows. Sometimes I just wish I could take Psalm 23 and speak that to myself the rest of my life. But there are many chapters in the Bible I couldn't do that with. True verbal inerrancy makes as much sense to me as physical transubstantiation. God's presence is Real in the wine and host, and in the scripture; in both cases he is accessed through faith; but the host remains simple bread, the bible a collection of religious literary artifacts of various genre, some written centuries or millenia after the events they describe, some only a few years or decades later. In both testaments these books are covered with human fingerprints. This is what makes Jesus' words stand out so starkly. He may not be represented perfectly in the gospels, but what we do have is the record of an astonishing individual. If God ever did visit this earth, Jesus is a prime contender, maybe the only one.
Liberal (and I wince at using this term) critics like Crossan try to go back, deeper than the nt record, to a Christianity before Christians. They argue that what we hve in the gospels and epistles is already fantasy-riddled myth. This idea too will have to sit for another time. Whether one can deny the resurrection and the miracles, and most of the teaching of the nt, and still call oneself a Christian as Crossan does...that's another question too.
***
On a final note: I did my exposure tape a few times over the last couple weeks and had a hard time concentrating because so much other stuff is going on in my head. But I need to at least be doing breathing/relaxing exercises to lower my anxiety; I'm so worked up over work I can feel it in the muscles of my body. I was slacking big time on my exposure work when I was feeling well, about two months I went like this. Not the best idea. I need that work, as scary as it is, for myself and my family. More than I can say. Pray for this for me too: discipline to get down and do it, and psychic healing as a result.
Night guys. It's now almost 1:00 and I am feeling sleepy. Soon I'll go to bed and hopefully actually sleep next to S. Be well all,
t
Things are crappy at work. The meeting Tuesday went poorly, the e-mail vote sent out later, even the meeting minutes: my vision for online got blended with my desire not to drive four or five days a week (and these things are not completely separate). Anyway, I don't know yet, but I could end up without online classes as soon as next fall. And no matter what happens next year or even the year after, this department does not feel the need to keep my teaching in the internet aether. Plenty of other colleges, even one in our district, staff many more sections than my dept. is willing to do. And I'm hurt, and angry, and sad.
I know I am making a choice: I could drive down four days a week the semesters I don't have online. But frankly, I miss being more active on the campus. I miss attending events, campus forums, the kind of thing one can do when one is there four or five days a week, and when one lives closer. I have a meeting on Friday with a faculty member from another campus in our district, half the distance from my house, and I hope this goes well. Right now, I'm leaning toward lateral transfer to this college, but that is like applying for another job. I have to have the support of the department I'm transferring to, and both presidents. I would appreciate prayer over this. Before the meeting Tuesday, the one that went so poorly, I prayed and actually asked God that his will be done; somehow I felt like that was the thing to pray for. Well, the meeting didn't go the way I wanted. Does that mean it was God's will? I don't know. But now I am feeling very scared.
I know it will all work out, even if I have to move back to the valley (blech). But I'm hopeful things might look brighter up the hill. We'll see.
Bottom line is I'm anxious and was hurt by a couple members of the department I didn't think would hurt me. Oh I am angry with them. And yes, all this has increased my general anxiety; it was laying so low for several weeks. I guess that is to be expected.
***
In spiritual news: I began writing my response to Schweitzer, ended up on the miracle question, re-read Hume...there's simply too much. I believe it will take me years to wade through the alternative 'gospels' should I continue to do so. I do want to know the truth; I need to know it. But I can't handle German higher criticism, Crossan, and myth studies all at the same time. I believe God will provide me the answers I need if I humbly and heartfully seek, but not all at once. More uncertainty. I don't like it. Still, the article is coming; more than one. I have things I need to work out on paper. Christian faith in the age of critical thinking and skepticism...it is a challenge; some things in the faith need to be worked out, and have been in many circles. The Adam/Eve creation myth for example. That account is clearly a literary myth. Did Jesus believe it? Impossible to say, but you see, I'm beginning and I'm not ready to begin.
Some people count sheep...
I did get a couple books on the episcopal diaconate from our deacon. They are interesting. I really don't know if that's where my gifts lie, but I'm curious. I can't imagine myself a priest or pastor in any denomination. It would be fun to be a Christian academic, but I'm getting a little old for all those new degrees, and that doesn't seem like what I want either.
I think of C.S. Lewis (no, I'm not saying my goal is to be him) and his simple, though often beautiful, solutions to theological problems. A genuine lay writer. And for most people, he's enough. He was plenty for me once. But when I read the writers he was refuting, writers he often doesn't even mention, it feels like his exquisite mind didn't have all the pieces to the puzzle it should have. Lewis was an English professor, deeply read (in a way almost no humans are today, even academics) in the mythic-literary history of the ancient world and the west. But he wasn't a theologian as he himself notes. And sometimes his solutions, while often excellent (I still find his essay on scripture in Reflections on the Psalms brilliant) seem bumper sticker simple to me. This doesn't mean he wasn't right, but he did not get as close to a problem as I like to, as modern critics do. Science has shown us how close we must look at the test tube when it boils. (Of course modern theology is often drastically creative; almost none of its hypothesis can actually be tested).
But when I let go of verbal plenary inspiration, when I see the Bible as a collection of books, written (and chosen) by humans, though influenced/appropriated by God for a single purpose: the presentation of the Christ; when chapter and verse no longer settle all debate for me...ah, you see, the gray door opens and it stays open. I have to admit there is so much I don't know, that no one on this earth knows. Sometimes I just wish I could take Psalm 23 and speak that to myself the rest of my life. But there are many chapters in the Bible I couldn't do that with. True verbal inerrancy makes as much sense to me as physical transubstantiation. God's presence is Real in the wine and host, and in the scripture; in both cases he is accessed through faith; but the host remains simple bread, the bible a collection of religious literary artifacts of various genre, some written centuries or millenia after the events they describe, some only a few years or decades later. In both testaments these books are covered with human fingerprints. This is what makes Jesus' words stand out so starkly. He may not be represented perfectly in the gospels, but what we do have is the record of an astonishing individual. If God ever did visit this earth, Jesus is a prime contender, maybe the only one.
Liberal (and I wince at using this term) critics like Crossan try to go back, deeper than the nt record, to a Christianity before Christians. They argue that what we hve in the gospels and epistles is already fantasy-riddled myth. This idea too will have to sit for another time. Whether one can deny the resurrection and the miracles, and most of the teaching of the nt, and still call oneself a Christian as Crossan does...that's another question too.
***
On a final note: I did my exposure tape a few times over the last couple weeks and had a hard time concentrating because so much other stuff is going on in my head. But I need to at least be doing breathing/relaxing exercises to lower my anxiety; I'm so worked up over work I can feel it in the muscles of my body. I was slacking big time on my exposure work when I was feeling well, about two months I went like this. Not the best idea. I need that work, as scary as it is, for myself and my family. More than I can say. Pray for this for me too: discipline to get down and do it, and psychic healing as a result.
Night guys. It's now almost 1:00 and I am feeling sleepy. Soon I'll go to bed and hopefully actually sleep next to S. Be well all,
t
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